Long Island helping its own
Even in good times, there are people in need. There is always a segment of the population that is unemployed or displaced. There are always homeless and hungry families, children subjected to violence and students who need more educational help than they're getting.
But when times are tough it's worse, and things today are extremely difficult. What's more, these economic challenges will likely stay with us for years and continue to create serious needs. This economic slowdown is starting to look less like a blip and more like an era, and if we aren't able to soften its impact on the less fortunate, we'll be feeling its effects long after the stock market again rises and unemployment finally falls.
For more than 60 years, the Newsday Charities Help-A-Family campaign has provided Long Islanders with help in filling a wide range of needs, and it has done so in a way that leverages contributions tremendously. Because donations are matched 50 cents on every dollar by the McCormick Foundation, and Newsday and the foundation pay all the administrative costs of the drive, every dollar donated results in $1.50 deployed to benefit the less fortunate.
The broad goals of Help-A-Family are to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for the young, fight hunger and homelessness, prevent child abuse and treat its victims. Those are serious and widespread needs, expensive and difficult battles that must be fought on a variety of fronts.
Last year, 37 nonprofit agencies received grants totaling almost $1.2 million. Bethany House in Roosevelt provided homeless mothers and children with food, clothing, rent, heat, electricity and medicine. Hempstead's Interfaith Nutrition Network worked to lift people out of homelessness for the long haul via life skills training, tutoring and support services, along with housing. New Ground, also in Hempstead, operated Reading All-Stars, a program offering one-on-one tutoring and support services to formerly homeless students. And dozens of other organizations did their part to make people's lives better.
It's a sad paradox of the economy that when times are good enough to make fundraising easier, needs are less acute. Now, with so many feeling strapped, the need is extraordinary and the resources sparse.
Now, though, is the time when your help means the most.
If you are able to give, please donate at newsday.com/helpafamily, or call 631-843- 3056. Your gift, large or small, can provide real help and real hope at a time when more and more people need it.